Chapter 3

"In 1985 I started being the class clown in some ways; you see I had the mind to pull pranks. Everything went well, pulling most of the basic childhood mischief in 5th grade. I even started making some 'so called' friends. Each day I would come up with a new stunt for a different teacher. That left me 9 days to cycle through the teachers with the jokes I would pull, and the start the process over, using a different list for who I'd get next each of the 9 days. The pranks ranged from live snakes, namely gardener snakes, the small black non poisonous kind, in a desk, up to and including chalk in the eraser.

Every thing went well with those pranks, until one day I was finally caught. Sixth period science was right after lunch, and the teacher had lunch the same period. I got to class a few minutes early to set up a prank. This one would be overboard; even I thought so, now that I look back. Exactly 15 seconds before bell, I covered the seat of the teachers chair in super glue and exited the classroom, so not to get caught.

I thought everything went well; the teacher walked in, sat down and noticed something was wrong. He tried to stand back up, but the super glue had soaked through his pants right to the skin of his legs, not only binding the pants to the chair as I had wanted, but binding him to his pants as well.

One of my 'so called' friends told the teacher who had been in on the latest prank binge. Then that student took it upon himself also to go get another teacher. That teacher, Mr. Harold, was eventually removed from the chair later that day in community General Hospital here in Reading, no surgery required. He did loose some leg hair from what I heard though.

I, Leon J McFeral, for the first time in my life, received 2 weeks suspension and another 2 weeks of detention. I found out I was very lucky, that the teacher could of, and probably would have, if I was not a straight A student, pressed charges on me for that prank.

The suspension and detention I could deal with. What made it hard was the 7 weeks of grounding I went through starting the day before Easter vacation. No TV, no music, no phone, and NO computer for 7 weeks (yeah I know computers back then were ancient, but I loved playing some basic games I found. I also was programming them in basic and binary).

The summer year was once again a bore. September 1985 to June 1986, the school year that I went back to being the outcast. Now not only was I being made fun of for my IQ, but also for the fact that I was being used by people I thought were my friends. Isn't drama fun.

The only thing that made the entire year something to remember in the summer of 1986 was the fact I received a letter from Hope stating that she may be moving back permanently sometime. Her mom got a promotion which allowed her to choose an office to work in instead of traveling all the time. The promotion would start sometime in October. Hope was pretty sure her mom was going to choose the Wyomissing Office, which was An Outskirt of Reading."